OS01/Transcript
This is the written version of #OnlineStar's first episode. #FirstWorldProblems "The VirtNet is a social network, connecting the whole world. And, to be honest, I would have never expected it to become a major part of my life. Of course, I post things too. I follow quite a few people and I chat with my friends on daily basis. But I never expected myself to become an important part of the online community." While Mai speaks, the silver glimmering logo of the OnlineStar glimmers in the dark. A brown box is filled with a black box, a sticker with the OnlineStar logo acts as seal, once the box is filled. The sticker also shows the date, 2138.05.02 and the receiver, "Sakaki Mai". "I really love music." Mai continues. "I think, no day passes without me listening to music. In the morning, in the evening, in breaks, whenever I can do so. It would be weird without music. I write, too. But I'd rather die than showing anyone the 'songs', I've written." While she talks, the sun rises at the sky above Tokyo. Slowly, a chaotic room of a teenager is shown. Several paper sheets are on the floor, just like clothes. A keyboard is in the edge of the room, next to an old laptop and an empty cup. A rather huge stereo equipment is standing in front of a cupboard. CDs are piled up on it, some of the still open. In the center of the room, a brown guitar is on the floor, next to a white teddy bear who wears a pink t-shirt with a clef on it. Mai is sleeping in her bed, under a blanket with a red flower-pattern. At her wall are several posters of artists. "But I never thought of me becoming an artist." Her phone alarm rings. The opening starts. Mai leaves the apartment in which she and her mother are living in, shouting "I'm going to school!". With headphones, she enters the train and takes out her phone. While she is sitting in the train and Tokyo passes by, she starts introducing herself. "I am Sakaki Mai, a 1st year high school student. I attend the Public Radiant Garden School, a rather new school in my neighborhood." She opens the VirtNet app on her phone, checking the news (of whose the only visible headline is "Radiant Garden Park receives a new playing ground") before switching to her personal messages. She opens the first message that she hasn't read yet, by Sakaki Rara. "I live in Tokyo, the capital of Japan since my childhood. I never left the city for real. Holidays, yes, but never for anything else." She continues. The message, she opens, is displayed after a short loading sequence. The mascot of the VirtNet is dancing around on her phone's screen. The last activity in the chat between Rara and Mai was on yesterday evening. 21:34 Sakaki Rara: You'll make it. 21:34 Sakaki Rara: Just 11 months left! 21:34 Sakaki Rara: Stop hiding behind your headphones and join a club. 21:35 Sakaki Mai: I don't even know which club to join. 21:36 Sakaki Mai: I missed the orchestra's audition and videogames aren't exactly my hobbies. Good night~ 21:37 Sakaki Rara: Try all of them out. Good night. The new message, she receives, is blinking. 07:34 Sakaki Rara: And be positive! You won't find friends if you hide behind your headphones! "To be honest, I'm not the best at meeting new people and finding friends." She types "I'll try." before returning to the other messages. "I've always been together with my best friends, but they don't attend high school yet." She opens up the other unread message by April Parker. 07:34 April Parker: Today after school at the park? With Luca, me and you? Once again, Mai types, this time a "Yes." The messages are read by their receivers and Mai returns her phone to her bag. She leaves the train and joins the other students that are on their way to school. "Thinking of it, April, Luca and me have been together since kindergarten. The transfer from elementary school to middle school was difficult already, but then, I was busy with the school orchestra. Now, I can't even attend that again." She pulls out her headphones and enters the school grounds. "Right now, I have nothing but my songs." While she walks into class, she quietly greets the other students. Some of them notice her, but most of them continue talking with their friends. "Well, it's my fault." The teacher enters the room, the students rise and the lesson starts. The clock at the wall shows that it's 12am and the lunch break is about to start. The students of Mai's class slowly leave the class, chatting. Mai does the same, but without chatting. Unlike the majority of the students, she doesn't head into the direction of the cafeteria. She heads to the opposite direction, towards an empty, rather small room. Trying to not make any noises, Mai enters the room, chucking a bit, before closing the door. The room, she has entered is a small room with a blackboard, a single table and an old piano. Mai puts down her bag and takes out a folder which is full of music sheets, written by herself. "Let's finish that one", she whispers while sitting down in front of the piano. She starts playing a melody, starting again several times. From times to times, she stops to write down something onto the paper sheet, revealing the title of the song, she is playing "to be decided". Outside of the school, two students notice the piano melody and stop to listen. The faces of them aren't shown. "I wonder who it is, playing those songs every day." The female student wonders. "I rather wonder where he or she got the piano." The male student replied. The female student laughs. "But it's definitely a nice song." She comments. "Ooh! I know it! It's a ghost of a dead student!" A sigh is heard from the side. About an hour later, Mai rises from the piano and picks up her phone, taking out her lunch too. 13:01 Sakaki Rara: You're available? Mai replies with "Yes?" and seconds later, her phone rings quietly. Mai takes up the phone. At the other side of the line, Rara is sitting in her class too. Just like Mai, she has got lunch break. Once she starts talking to Mai, she leaves the room and goes outside, sitting down on a bench. "And? How is the plan going?" Rara asks. "Which plan?" Mai is confused. "Guess. You're supposed to join a club! That's mandatory!" Mai cringes. "Technically, it isn't." She replies. "Don't start with excurses." "I had class until now!" "Let me guess, and the last hour? You were busy with homework? You didn't hide in the edge of you classroom?" "…No?" Mai looks around in the small room, before adding, "Not in my classroom." "Worse." Rara comments. "Seriously, Mai. You need other friends, excluding the Parker-twins." "April and Luca are fine." "But middle school. I can't even count the number of friends, I have." "You had 50% in the last math exam." "That's not a valid argument!" Silence follows, until Rara sighs: "Do you plan to stay the loner for a whole year?" "No-" "Then find friends." "But-" "Do something at least." "I-" "Join a club." "Rara?" "We had this discussion for 33 days in a row. Do it." "I just can't!" Silence. Rara looks onto her phone, obviously annoyed. "Then, I can't help you." She replies before stopping the call without any other words. She lays back onto the bench. "Someone needs to pull her into reality." Mai on the other side of the line sighs, looking onto her phone before putting it back. "This is horrible." She whispers. Mai pulls out a small notebook from her bag, opens a page and notices a few words before returning to the piano play, replaying the same melody like before. After playing it once, she stops and sighs. "Song writing is my secret hobby. Neither my best friends or Rara, my cousin, know about it. Showing them my songs? I never could do that." She repeats before reading the lyrics of the yet to be named song. "Yet, I can't stop. I guess, it's just my way of expressing myself to myself. I don't write diary, I write my songs." She says. "I mean, I write diary, but not as frequently as songs." Slowly, with a grey pencil and almost not visible, she writes down words above the scores. Many words have lyrics already. "If someone other would sing them, and say that they'd be their songs, I would allow it. But no one would ever do so." She ends with the words "Give me the courage to do it." and opens her phone, revealing that she has been recording her monologue. A few hours later, Mai enters the park close to her school. April and Luca are waiting for her. April jumps and waves, trying to make Mai notice them. "Mai-chan! Here!" Mai looks up and follows them. The three go together through the park before entering the train. "And? How was your English test?" Mai asks Luca and April. "I am fluent in English." April comments bald. "I'm speaking English every day at home. Guess how it went!" "Well, I guess that was obviously. I'm sorry." Mai apologizes. "No need to apologize." Luca says. "And? How were your classes?" "I guess, I didn't understood mathematics exactly. Maybe, you could explain me it?" "I'm younger then you!" Luca exclaims. "And better than Mai-chan and me together!" April replies, louder. The three leave the park and enter the train station. Mai opens the door of the apartment, her mother and she live in. The door is locked. Mai silently enters her room and is about to start learning when the doorbell rings. She raised, wondering who this could be. "Mum should have a key." She realized, but opens the door. She faces a mailman. "I have a packet, addressed to Sakaki Mai-san." "Huh?" Mai is surprised. "What? That's me-" The obviously tired mailman nods: "Okay, then please sign here." Mai signs and the man rolls a rather huge box into the apartment and leaves. "But I never ordered anything." Mai finishes. The mailman doesn't hear her. Obviously confused, Mai watches the mailman leaving. "Did mum order something?" She wonders while closing the door. The packet clearly shows her name and the logo of a company named "OnlineStar". "Online… Star?" Mai reads out loud. She pushes the box into her room and closes her room's door. Silence fills the room while Mai looks at the packet. "I wonder who send the packet." Mai mumbles. "No data about the []." She realizes and raises. Mai turns away from the packet and starts her laptop. She opens the browser and searches the name 'OnlineStar'. She scrolls through the websites but doesn't find anything. "That doesn't make sense." She realizes. "Don't all companies have websites?" She asks before returning and opening the packet without another word. She is quite surprised about the content. "…A computer?" She wonders. "Is that a joke of Luca?" She wonders before noticing a letter. "Huh?" She opens the letter curiously and reads it. "Dear Mai." She starts. "You will likely wonder what you have found here. To be honest, I am not sure too. This is a present from me to you, because I think that you will be able to use it. I have been working long on this and finally, it is finished. I wanted to help you once in your life and I hope that this will help you. Use it. You have a gift. Just use it. Believe me. Signed, OS''" '' Mai stares at the letter, not knowing what to do now. After looking at the letter and the package for a while, she smiles a bit. "Why not try?" She whispers. A bit later, it's night, Mai finished setting up everything. She lies under her desk and her phone rings. While standing up, she bumps the desk with her head. "Ouch…" She takes the call while looking at the computer. "Mai?" It's her mother. "I'm eating with colleagues. Can you cook yourself something?" "Yes, of course." Mai replies, glaring at the computer's screen. "Really? Without burning yourself again?" "I'll order pizza?" "Good idea. See you later." "Good bye." She ends the call and sighs: "How am I going to explain that?" She wonders, still looking at the computer. She starts the computer who asks to plug in the headphones. "Please… insert headphones." Mai reads and looks back to the box, fishing out the headphones out of the chaos of plastic. She plugs in the headphones into the loudspeakers. First, nothing happens, before the desktop appears. "Browser… VirtNet Application, virus protection…" Mai notices. "OnlineStar? Wasn't that the name of the company?" She turns around to check and proves that she remember the name correctly. Without much thinking, she takes the mouse and starts the program.The window that pops up surprises her a bit. "Creative, Performance, Social Media, Contact." She reads out the four navigation points that appeared on the gold-green window. In the right upper corner, the logo of the company appears. She clicks onto "Creative". "Music, Lyrics, Stage, Dance, Outfits, Other, Return." She reads out the options. "That's a music writing tool?" She realizes. "I could write songs on paper too…" She wonders. She opens "Music" and realizes that it is a song writing program. "That looks professional." She whispers amazed. She tries to open recent 'projects' and finds a project named "TBA". "Maybe, that comes from the person who send this to me?" She wonders. She opens the project and once she sees the music sheet, she cries out. "Wait! How?! That's can't be!" She panics. "That's my song!" She adds as if needing to explain herself to someone. "I wrote this song this week! How?!" She starts checking the lyrics in another window which are full of her notes. She quickly raises, taking out her bag, checking whenever they sheets are still in it. "Are they? Are they still here?" She quickly speaks. She finds them. "Oh, I already thought someone stole them." She returns to the computer, stopping again a bit. She thinks about something before sitting down and starting to type. A little bit later, Mai has opened five windows by now. One shows the music sheet, she opened earlier, another the lyrics. She has also opened a window featuring an outfit, a hairdo and a stage. "A school uniform based outfit with a curly ponytail." She says to herself. "I'd call that idolish!" She saves the data and returns to the main menu. "I still wonder who created this program through. Who could know my songs?" She asks. Of course, no one replies. "But, at least, I finished the song." She smiles while once again looking at the lyrics. "Fairytale Romance" She whispers. She turns around on her desktop chair: "Imagining that a real idol would sing it - that'd be awesome!" She smiles before looking on the screen again. "I wonder what the other options are? Social Media is surely something related to the VirtNet." She thinks while hovering above the word. "Never! I'd never show anyone this song." She adds, shaking her head. "Contact might mean mailing the publisher? Maybe, I could clean up this mystery?" She wonders. "But… Performance?" She clicks onto the word. "Select a project." She reads out loud and selects 'Fairytale Romance'. A loading circle appears. Suddenly, the screen starts glowing white. "Wha-whaaat?!" She opens her eyes a bit afraid. She is standing on the stage, Mai created before - a flying CD in the blue sky with headlights. 'What is that? The newest Virtual Reality game? But I don't have any VR glasses…" Mai thinks while looking around. Suddenly, the music of Fairytale World starts playing and without much thinking, Mai starts singing silently. The scene cuts shortly after she started. Mai is sitting in front of the computer, obviously confused. "What was that?" She wonders aloud. She clicks onto the video that has appeared in front of her. "No score?" She wonders. "But, if that's a video game, I think I'll try again." She smiles. Once again, a bit later, her mother returns. "Mai? You're okay?" She calls from the hallway. "Huh?" Mai looks up. It's 10pm, she has been working on the performance. "Did you burn your fingers?" The sarcastic answer of her mother makes her cringe. "I forgot to eat…" She whispers. "Yeah, everything fine!" She replies loud. In the next second, her stomach growls. "I should have eaten something." She adds. "Maybe, I should tell her the truth…" Her mother enters the room: "Ah, that's the computer, you're testing? Looks neat." She adds. "And modern. You're lucky." Mai blinks twice before saying: "Eh… Yes…?" "Well, the OS-Company guy visited me at the university today, asking for my allowance. I signed the papers. He was quite nice, and handsome. Maybe, he calls someday." She adds. "Of course?" Mai says, not sure what to say. "Well, have fun. But don't forget to sleep, dear! It's already 10pm! How's school, by the way?" "…Great?" "I get it, you don't want to talk about it. I'm a boring mother." Her mother concludes quickly and disappears. "Mummy…?" Mai looks back to the computer. "… Okay?" Mai opens the video, she had recorded before and watches it. The singer starts performing Fairytale Romance on the sky stage. Once the performance ends, Mai smiles and clicks onto "Finish". Following the saving process, she turns off the screen of the computer and seems to want to go to bed. The last scene shows a VirtNet video whose likes and clicks raise quickly. The scene shows the user who posted the video "Kira Star" with a profile picture taken from the Fairytale Romance performance. Finally, the name of the video is shown: "Kira Star - Fairytale Romance". The ending starts. Category:User:Millyna Category:Transcripts Category:OnlineStar Category:OnlineStar Transcripts